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--Stephanie Stokes

With new app, oil spill can cast its shadow over any city

If it’s a bit difficult getting your brain around how large the BP oil spill is, try this application out for size. Using Google Earth and maps from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Paul Rademacher, an engineering manager for Google, has devised a website where you can have the shape of the spill projected over a map of any city.

For New Orleans, the spill would cover all of the city, then stretch as far north as the top border of St. Tammany parish. From east to west, it would stretch from as far away as the Mississippi-Alabama border to deep into Lafourche and St. James parishes.

For you East Coast folks, the oil would blanket New York City and reach to Jersey City and Newark. For Washington, D.C., it would cover the greater Maryland-Virginia area. And going tropical, it would cover most of Hawaii’s Big Island.